Page 96 of On Thin Ice

Sadly, though, a lot had stayed the same.

“What happened?” I asked quietly.

“She left,” Marjorie said with a shrug that I thought she probably meant to seem indifferent, but her fingers tightened around the stem of her wine glass, betraying the tension she still carried all these years later. “Decided a half-life with her family was better than a full one with me. Packed a single suitcase and moved back to Dallas to live with her sister. She sent me a letter a few months later thanking me for loving her, but said she couldn’t live a life that exposed her like that. Said she wasn’t brave enough.”

Silence stretched between us again, filled only by the quiet hum of the heater and the faint sound of Bell’s voice on the phone inside.

“I think about her a lot,” she continued wistfully. “Especially around the holidays. Not in a bitter way, mind—I’ve lived a good life, made peace with the choices we both made. But I think that’s why I knew what I was seeing with you two. That ache you’ve been carrying. The way he looks at you like you hung the stars.”

I swallowed hard, her words lodging deep in my chest.

She reached out again, and I let her grasp my hand in hers. “Don’t let fear make your choices for you, Ethan. Because someday, you’ll look back, and I promise you, what people might’ve said or thought? It won’t matter a single bit. Not if you don’t have him in your life.”

I let her words sit there for a second, heavy and full of truth.

Then I exhaled, slow and uneven. “I know things have changed,” I said, carefully choosing my words. “But in professional sports? Not as much as people think.”

My fingers tightened slightly around hers before I let go and leaned back in my chair.

“And outside of sports?” I continued. “Forget it. Texas is so openly hostile to queer folks that some days I wonder if I’m losing my damn mind just by living here. The bills they’re trying to pass, the laws they’re trying to repeal? They’re trying to legislate us out of existence.”

Marjorie’s expression didn’t change, but her eyes never left mine.

“Even in our locker room,” I went on, lowering my voice lest Bell overhear. “Even on a team where the owners pride themselves on equity and inclusion, there’s still a guy on our roster who’s openly hostile to Bell and Miller.” My jaw clenched as I said it, hands unconsciously forming fists on the table. “It’s still the same good ol’ boys club it’s always been. They’ll smile for the cameras during Pride Month while letting guys like our resident bigot run his fucking mouth.”

“Management doesn’t do anything?”

“Not really.” I shook my head. “Bell and Miller wouldn’t dream of complaining—of asking for preferential treatment—but the asshole’s not really subtle about it. Someone higher up has to know the kind of energy he brings to the team, but the guy still gets to show up and skate like he hasn’t done anything wrong.

“Bell tries to laugh it off. Says he’s fine. But I see the way he flinches when Chet walks into the room. I see how Miller avoids him. And I—” I stopped myself, my chest suddenly tight, my breaths dragging—such a sharp contrast to the calm warmth I’d felt only minutes ago.

“It scares me. The idea of putting myself in the crosshairs. Putting Bell in them with me.”

Marjorie was quiet for a moment, then she leaned forward slightly, her hands resting on the edge of the table. She held my gaze, then slowly shook her head. “Excuses,” she said, not unkindly but with the unyielding certainty of someone who’d lived through the consequences. “Valid fears wrapped in convenient justifications.”

I blinked, my body instinctively pulling back as if her words had physically shoved me.

“Move to California,” she said. “Or Massachusetts. Play for a team like Seattle that actually celebrates our community and wouldn’t tolerate that kind of behavior from one of its players. A team where you could be out and supported and safe.”

Her words landed like a punch, not cruel, but undeniable.

Around us, the careful table setting Bell had created—the candles flickering, the half-eaten meal growing cold—seemed to mock the upheaval I was feeling inside.

“You’re not wrong about the fear,” she added gently. “It’s real. But fear doesn’t get to be the whole story. Not when love is on the other side of it. Because at the end of the day, Ethan? If you wanted to, you would.”

The phrase echoed in my head like a condemnation of everything I was.

If you wanted to, you would.

It was like she’d handed me a mirror and asked me to decide if I could live with what I saw reflected back at me.

I glanced through the sliding door where Bell was still pacing, one hand gesturing animatedly as he talked to his agent.

Just looking at him made my chest ache with everything I felt—everything I wanted but was still terrified to claim publicly.

“It’s not that simple,” I said, my voice barely audible, even to myself.

Marjorie followed my gaze, her expression inscrutable. “It never is. But someday, Bell is going to ask you for something you can’t give him while you’re hiding. And when that happens—” she paused, meeting my eyes again, “—you’ll have to decide what matters more: your fear or his happiness.”

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